Calendar sync

Import and export work with ICS feeds, the standard calendar format that Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook all support. You don't sign in to those services; you exchange feed addresses. Both are set up per product.

Open the sync settings

Open 'Calendar', select a product, and choose 'Calendar sync' from the toolbar. The screen has two sections: 'Import calendar' and 'Export calendar'.

Import: block slots from an external calendar

Import reads events from your external calendar and blocks those times for the selected product, so a guest can't book over them. This is what prevents double bookings when you also take bookings somewhere else.

1. In your external calendar, copy the calendar's private ICS address (in Google Calendar it's the secret address in the calendar settings). A webcal:// address is accepted too.
2. Choose 'Add import', enter an 'Import name', and paste the address into 'ICS URL'.

The feed is read right away and then every 15 minutes. Repeating events are expanded, and all-day events block the whole day. Blocked times show on your calendar as external events. If a feed fails to load, its status shows 'Error'; the events fetched last keep blocking until the next successful read, and 'Sync now' reads it again on demand.

Export: see reservations in your calendar

'Enable export' creates an 'ICS feed URL' for the product. Add that address to your calendar app to see confirmed and pending bookings; pending ones appear as tentative. Only the booked time is included, not buffer time. How quickly your app refreshes is up to the app, often 12 to 24 hours for Google Calendar.

Turning import and export off

• Switch an import off to pause it. It stops reading, and its events stop blocking slots, but the address is kept for later.
• 'Delete' removes it entirely.
• 'Disable export' invalidates the feed address. Apps that still have it stop receiving updates.

Personal calendars added to your own account are display only and don't block bookings.